


Our Private Affairs

by Herbrarian



Series: New Orders [18]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Comfort, Cunnilingus, F/M, Feels, Oral Sex, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 04:24:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8130290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Herbrarian/pseuds/Herbrarian
Summary: Previously: First Day approaches and Skyhold prepares to settle in for the worst of the winter storms. The Inquisitor is lately returned from the field for an overdue, extended rest. The Commander grapples with how to fit together all the pieces of his life.





	

Cullen closes the door on the great hall and hesitates before he continues on. He waited until the dark and the quiet to come. He knows that makes him a . . . what? A coward? He swallows reflexively. A coward is not how he thinks of himself, it is not who he believes he is. He takes the note from his breast pocket and rubs the edge, rubs the trace of where her seal had been and has since been worn off. He doesn’t need to open it to know the words inside, but he does; retraces with his eyes her pen strokes, looks for hesitation. He finds none.

_Better to be thought a fool than known as a coward._

He walks on.

He knocks softly at the inner door and waits. He doesn’t hear noise inside. He opens the door and softly latches it behind him. He treads up the stairs and blinks into the glare of the fire light.

She is there. But she is not awake, as he thought—as he hoped—she might be. She is stretched out in bed, facing the stairs, her face soft in sleep. He continues into the room, feeling the intruder. He is uncertain and a little unsteady for it, his bag of linens for the morning in one hand and her note in the other. He stands neither moving further in nor leaving, simply listening to her breathe. The only other sound is the occasional puncture of fire crackling in the night.

He feels like a fool. Uncertainty is new for him, and he is unsure what to do next. He knows he waited too long and he cringes at the thought of disappointing her, that she waited here in the evening for him and he has taken too long.

He should go and leave her to sleep. She has scarcely been home a day. Her schedule has been filled with meetings, training, and nobles. His mind had flown when he saw her note, understood that she was safeguarding time for them. But even now he carries his doubt. It is no small part of the paranoia of the withdrawal; he knows this. But this is still so fleetingly new, so indescribably precious that he cannot dispel his qualms. It is why he waited tonight: he would not burden her with his failings, his inability to believe, especially if it is his failure to believe in her. In his mind’s eye he sees himself stoically gather himself together, slip down the stairs, quietly latch the door, and steal across the keep to his desk and a late night of being her sword arm. That is something he knows.

But he does not.

He cannot resist a few more moments. After all, if he is going to walk back to his rooms there isn’t anyone to see him. The next day is the rest day and few will be about and those that are will be in their cups and too occupied to notice him prowling.

So he sits and watches her sleep.

Under the blanket her long legs are curled at the knee, her body on its side tilts to make a hollow of her belly and waist. One of her arms curls underneath her head, her hand a fist on the pillow, affixing it there. Her other arm lies on top of the blanket and the muted, eerie light of the Anchor presses around the blanket folds. Her fist is wrapped around a bunch of it, holding it to her chest in a gesture that is curiously reminiscent of how he salutes her. It is endearing and peculiarly comforting, that motion. He cannot help but wonder if she fell asleep to thoughts of him, generous thoughts of his fealty and his devotion. He hopes so.

Relaxing back onto the divan he continues to watch her. She is fresh back from the Hinterlands again, helping Cole to work through something and closing the never-ending Rifts. It made no matter that he knows—has seen—how effortlessly she does it, it is that aspect of the routine that worries him the most for her safety. Too many times at the close of battle, the relief of near-victory in the air, as guards are relaxed there is a particular bitterness that follows when allies fall. They are all careful with her life, he knows this; but it only takes one moment of inattention. He knows from her report that there were Despair Demons near Wolf Hallow and wonders how she has been sleeping. He could see at the war table that she was exhausted, could see it in the tip of her head, could read it in her eyes, the tightness of her lips, the set of her jaw.

He had been one to suggest the sparring ground. He knows too well the exhaustion brought on by dreams that won’t leave you. It was enchanting to watch her. Commander Helaine had been passing through Skyhold on her journey back to her clan in the Dales for First Day and had been happy to match Dorothea and see how she progressed. Solas and Helaine had met her in the sparring ring and she met their challenge with ease and control evident in her body as she parried thrusts from the blade and staffs and dispelled effects from both mages. Dorothea had not even flinched when Cassandra sent in soldiers to harry her as she parried the torrent of magic. She settled effortlessly into a rhythm of barrier, parry, attack, lightning, sprit blade, attack, and repeating on and on. The variation was effortless for her to sustain and she moved with grace and fluidity on the field.

In the end it had only been Dorothea and her trainer, spirit blades against one another, in a seeming draw. A draw until Dorothea forced the other woman’s hand and bashed her with her head. Both of their barriers had winked out, this last of their magic gone, and Dorothea had driven home her advantage in that moment of surprise. Helaine begrudgingly took her defeat, a wry, rare smile for her apprentice.

Dorothea is fierce.  Dangerous, even; he chuckles to himself, smiles to remember her own word from so long ago. Hubris transformed into fact. She is grace on the battlefield and Cullen cannot get enough of the sight of it, drinks in the vision of her dance. He had ached to join in it with her, to feel the strength of her being as she met him on the field.

Laying there, her ferocity melted away, only her quiet power is visible. His sight takes in the swell of her breasts beneath the linens, the tapering dip to her waist, the flare and roundness to her rump. His eye shifts to her leg, moving under the sheets, extending as one of her feet peeks out from the covers. Mesmerized by the curl of her toes and the soft inhalation of her breath he doesn’t realize she’s woken until she speaks:

“Mmm, good, I’m glad you came. I was beginning to worry,” she murmurs.

Her eyes are heavy and she isn’t quite awake.

“I’m sorry, I . . .” and he stops, for he cannot lie to her, tell her he was called away or that he had to attend to something. The truth is he had not come because he was unsure.

She smiles at his silence, unperturbed, says, “It’s all right. Come into bed with me and sleep.”

Then it is just that simple.

He removes his armor, placing it on an empty stand in the room. It is there, he realizes, for him. He disrobes down to thin, linen breeches and crosses to the wash stand to clean his face, his neck, his hands of the day’s toil. He hears her soft sigh and he looks over to where she lays. She shifted on to her side slightly to better watch him, he realizes. Her smile is . . . soft, intimate, and the look in her eyes is endearingly possessive. It startles him because he realizes this moment is hers, this sight of him preparing for sleep. They’ve lain together and slept side by side, but always after sex, exhaustion pouring in after their vigor. The intimacy of this moment is new and is not something he has ever shared in his adult life. Living a life in a Circle had meant close quarters and barracks—a life led in a group—but not shared with anyone, not witnessed by anyone.

He would have expected it to make him self-conscious. But rather than the dry mouth of apprehension he feels a flush of joy, of contentment. It is unexpected, but wholly pleasant.

He finishes drying his hands, smiling at her. She returns his smile, her eyes shining. Cullen walks to the far side of the bed, lifts the covers, and slides in next to her. He pulls her back to his chest, wrapping his arms around her waist to hold her close.

She sighs and languorously stretches her legs out along his, sneaking one foot between his legs and hooking it around his calf. She breathes: “Good night, Cullen,” and her shoulders relax, her head stills, and he can tell she has drifted off to sleep again.

The night is still. If he leans his head forward he can smell her hair and kiss the crown of her head. He does so. There is a tang of Rosemary and Bee Balm rising from the heat of her scalp and he is suddenly in his mother’s herb garden, showing Branson the hummingbirds drinking from the long, slender fingers of the flower. Branson in his excitement reaches a chubby hand to grab it—doesn’t manage it—grabs the leaves instead, releasing the floral, velvety sharpness on the air.

Closing his eyes, his hand travels to the peak of her hip and rests on the rise of her pelvic. He drifts into sleep, smelling home.

 

Later, he doesn’t know how much later, his consciousness lifts and his eyes drag open. The bed is empty beside him, but not cool. The room is dark, the fire died down to embers. He senses motion and a lifetime of being the watchman drags his eyes open. But it is she, lifting logs to the hearth. He rises to help her.

“You’re fine; lie still,” and he hears the smile on her lips. “Keep the bed warm for me.”

Before long he feels a shift in the Veil and sees a flame join the embers. The logs catch and she melts into the shadows to dart under the covers.

She is chilled from the night air and he takes her hands in his and blows on them, captures her feet with his to warm her extremities. She smiles shyly at him, gratitude in her eyes, and her lips begin to tremble as a shiver takes her. Clucking under his breath he reaches for her and pulls her into his embrace. It is not until his hands circle her cool back and the firmness of her nipples press into his chest that he realizes she is naked.

In his life he has known women, indulged in dalliances, met physical needs.

Then Kirkwall and so much death on his hands and destruction around him, the terrors of the Gallows chasing the horrors of Kinloch; he thought he would never want the touch of another on his skin.

During the first of the withdrawal he lay with a string of women to see if it could dull the symptoms, mute the sheer physical need of the blue song. But the touch of another on his skin was grating, a harsh dissonance when he craved the melody of the Lyrium.

_But, she._

He breathes her in his mind.

_She._

He is mesmerized by the feeling of her skin under his fingers. At first touch she is cold from the night’s chill, but everywhere his fingers glide her skin leaps with a heat in the blood as if he ignites her as she had done to the kindling. He dips his head and meets her lips in a chaste kiss as his hands move up each side of her spine, stroking the flesh that flows in slight divots over her ribs. As his palms trace up to her shoulders, his fingers circle the back of her neck, meeting and burying in the short hair, his thumbs stroking along her jaw line. As he does she tilts her head slightly and opens her lips, inviting him into her. He accepts her invitation of hospitality with tender lips and tongue.

He steadies her with one hand still on her neck and moves his arm next to the bed so that it can sneak around her waist. He reaches down and grabs her bottom. Compared to the heat coming from her chest and lips, her bottom is still cool. His hands are warm and he begins to massage her buttocks, moving warmth back into them. She groans softly in pleasure into his mouth and begins to shift her legs to intertwine with his.

He breaks from the kiss to look into her face. The fire has caught and the light increases on them. He can see her eyes heavy-lidded with desire, her lips full and swollen from kisses and nips of teeth. He traces his thumb over the crest of her lips, the barest of pressure. He releases her lips to trace fingertips across her chin, dipping down her throat to the hollow of her neck. He strokes the pulse point there, feels the way her heartbeat accelerates at his stroke.

He drifts his fingers and eyes downward, tracing the outward curve of her breast with touch and sight. He dips his fingers along the underside of her breast; the skin is tender and softer than silk. On impulse he leans his head forward and brushes it with his lips, testing the texture. It is as he thought; this unseen part of her is as luscious as cream as he flicks his tongue along it.

She arcs her back and her breast moves toward him. He nudges the nipple with his nose, breathing in the scent of her chest, sandalwood and jasmine. She mewls deep in her throat and he can feel it in her chest as well as hear it and he obliges her with a rasp of his tongue across the pert nub. She breathes his name, a sound of joy, and he returns his lips to her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, while his hand renews its exploration, feeling her waist set high above her sex, drags his hand down the roundness of her belly, the curve that hints at life for the future. He drifts his hand to her bottom to meet with the other and pulls her up and into him as he meets her lips with his.

The fall and rise of her body—the swell from her ribs, falling narrow to her waist, and rising again to her pelvic—rivets him. He shifts, props himself on an elbow to better see her with eyes as well as hands, and stares at the planes and valley of her waist as he runs his hand along it.

The covers pool around her hips and he cannot see what lies in the darkness. But as he strokes her—his eyes meditating on the path of his hand—he can smell her, the fullness of her musk.

His hand flows below the covers, edges down to the top of her thigh to her knee. He touches the firmness of bone there, cupping it in his palm. Then he traces fingers back up her leg, tracking the inside of her thigh. As his fingers climb to her groin, the skin softens and yields to his touch. His knuckles  brush against the hairs covering her sex as he skirts up to the softness of her belly, enjoying the contrast of tender skin here to the toned muscle and skin of her arms, her shoulders, her calves.

He registers the stilted sound of her breath, realizes she scarcely breathes and has not been since he began tracing her thigh. He shifts his hand, looking into her eyes and curls his fingers down the surface of her sex. As lightly as he stroked her jaw he lightly touches along the folds of her lips. As if in greeting, he can feel the moisture of her body—the damp of her longing—welcome him.

He moves to sit up and pulls the blankets down, exposing the fullness of her body. She whimpers involuntarily and he leans over to kiss her on the mouth, chastely returns his hand to her hip and thigh.

He releases her mouth and she drops back hard onto the pillows, not in full control of her movements, breath fast and sharp, watching his face. He turns again to study the book of her body, memorizing its lines. He strokes down her thigh, rounding her knee, and continues down her calf. With her foot flat on the bed her calf is relaxed and he traces the roundness of her muscle at rest to follow the curve as it tapers to her ankle, turns direction and follows it back to where it tucks into her knee. He shifts lower in the bed, dips his head, and begins to follow his fingers with his tongue back up her calf.

He shifts her other leg and moves further down the bed so that it wraps around behind him, nestling him between her thighs. He reclines there between her knees, the leg he has been busy admiring propped in front of him. His nose meets her knee as he leans forward again and he kisses the inside of the sensitive flesh there. She chuckles with the sensation that turns into a groan of want. He wraps his free hand around the outside of the leg, steadying it as it sways from lust, and he turns to kiss up her inner thigh, lowering his head toward her. The skin gets creamier as he traverses closer to her sex. He nips lightly with his teeth, enjoys the hiss of desire and longing that steals out from between her teeth.

Then he is at her lips, his hand gently pushes her leg to rest on the bed, and her body is laid before him. The scent of her is musky, pungent and sweet; she smells of the strongest, late summer mead, full of heat and sunshine. He strokes the lips of her sex with his fingers, separating the layers for his eyes. The sight is overwhelming and he cautiously sticks out his tongue and laps at her lips with the tip. She is warm, musky and slick, her body tense with her waiting for his ministrations. He glances up the landscape of her body to her face and his heart falters in disbelief that this is his privilege. Her mouth is moving and he realizes she is saying, “please.” He smiles and knows it is also his right.

Moving his hands to her buttocks, he shifts her to her back and lays flat on his stomach.

He extends his tongue and he rakes it from the base of her lips up to her core of muscles and nerves. She whimpers.

He repeats this on the other lip. She keens.

Chuckling to himself, he leans in to nibble. She gasps.

Intrigued, Cullen hums into the expanse of muscle between her core and her opening. Her hips undulate in response and her breath catches. Delighted he hums again and is greeted with a whimper of need as she presses toward him. Smiling he moves one of his hands to lay on the soft of her belly, anchoring her to a spot and he returns his lips to the small expanse of skin and muscle. He hums a melody into her being as he lifts his other hand to her opening and traces a gentle finger around the ridge of muscle. She flexes at his finger as if to draw him in and he catches his own breath at the feeling of his cock twitching in sympathetic movement. Her body continues to beckon and he pushes his finger in.

The muscles of her body grasp in welcome and he is taken by the primal need that surges into his belly and drives into his hips. His hardening cock shifts into the mattress and his tongue sweeps out and up her lips, involuntarily moving into persistent, long strokes. He rasps the flat of his tongue across the planes of her core and feels her chest fill with a gasp of breath. “Cullen,” she wheezes as if tortured and he shifts his hand from her belly to grip the joint of her thigh as he strokes with his tongue and plunges with his finger. His name changes in her mouth to a breathless plea, urging his rhythm. He pushes more firmly, stroking her frenzy, captivated with how he is touching her, inflaming her pleasure. This is new and indescribably precious to him. He has wetted a lover before with his tongue and mouth, but only as an incitement to coupling. He has never wanted to possess a woman as this before, to master her pleasure without chasing his own, finding his own arousal simply from the sight of her lust, the sound of her need, the scent of her desire, all of it borne from his ministrations and guidance to her precipice.

There is something missing, however. His rhythm misses an element, like a waltz that is trying to be danced without a third beat. His mind assesses what it could be and he slows slightly as he reviews to himself the tactics of his situation.

So it is Dorothea who supplies his answer. Her fingers grasp around his hand that holds her thigh. She pulls at this hand, panic making her grasp sharp as she feels her high threaten to slip from her. It is this movement that brings it into focus for him.

He needs her.

He moves her hand, carding her fingers into his hair and he cups them gently but firmly around his head. Her eyes squeeze shut as her hand guides his mouth and tongue against her sex. He obliges and moves his finger in a sympathetic rhythm and finally the pattern is set, the dance can complete.

Dorothea moves into him and he feels the muscles of her womb throb as her buttocks clench. Then she tumbles, lost in the pleasure he gives to her, lost in the joy she takes with him. Cullen’s senses are overwhelmed. He shifts to his elbows, lifting his head, his finger still riding out the aftershocks in her womb of her orgasm and he simply drinks in the sight of her as if she is the finest wine.

Her waist shifts and turns, her abdomen twists as she finishes the shudders of her ecstasy, her breasts begin to soften and almost quiver with her motions now that they are released from the tightness of her anticipation.

She gulps for air, one hand in her hair, the other casually dropping over a breast, stroking it as she tries to re-center in her body.

He leaves her legs and kisses first her navel, then her lower rib, then the outside curve of her cleavage, and he moves to curl behind her.

He pulls her back into his chest and dips his nose into the hollow of her neck below her ear. He drops languorous, moist kisses there and she sighs in contentment. It is a favorite place of hers for warm, wet kisses and he finds unbridled joy when he looks at that open, exposed area of skin and knows that it is his alone to touch and fondle.

Her eyes dip and open as she struggles to gain consciousness. She murmurs deep in her chest a sound he cannot make out and her hand reaches behind her bottom to his linen trousers to find the ties.

“Sleep,” he breathes into her throat, “I will be here in the morning.” She sighs a contented hum of happiness and he feels her breath start to elongate and pull to slumber.

And he knows, then, her invitation for the sweet gift that it was.

He will be here in the morning and neither of them will be alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Create Order #7


End file.
